Chuck Palahniuk

And the more desperate the circumstances become, the more desperate the stories they tell - and the more devious their machinations to make themselves the hero of the inevitable play/movie/non-fiction blockbuster that will certainly be made from their plight.

Twenty-three interconnected stories chronicle the experiences of people who have answered an ad for an artist's retreat, believing that they will find a peaceful refuge in order to create their individual masterpieces, only to find themselves trapped in a cavernous old theater in which they are kept completely isolated, with heat, power, and food in increasingly short supply. Reprint. 250,000 first printing.

Chuck Palahniuk's world has been, well, different from yours and mine. the harrowing circumstances of his father's murder and the trial of his killer - each essay or vignette offers a unique facet of existence as lived in and/or observed by one of America's most flagrantly daring and original literary talents.

Pitching an extraordinary battle between cruel authority and a rebellious free spirit, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel that epitomises the spirit of the sixties. This Penguin Classics edition includes a preface, never-before published illustrations by the author, and an introduction by Robert Faggen. Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electroshock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy - the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. The subject of an Oscar-winning film starring Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness. If you enjoyed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, you might like Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'A glittering parable of good and evil'The New York Times Book Review'A roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the Rulers who enforce them'Time'If you haven't already read this book, do so. If you have, read it again'Scotsman

Chuck Palahniuk's world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. In his first collection of nonfiction, Chuck Palahniuk brings us into this world, and gives us a glimpse of what inspires his fiction. At the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival in Missoula, Montana, average people perform public sex acts on an outdoor stage. In a mansion once occupied by The Rolling Stones, Marilyn Manson reads his own Tarot cards and talks sweetly to his beautiful actress girlfriend. Across the country, men build their own full-size castles and rocketships that will send them into space. Palahniuk himself experiments with steroids, works on an assembly line by day and as a hospice volunteer by night, and experiences the brutal murder of his father by a white supremacist. With this new direction, Chuck Palahniuk has proven he can do anything.

Diary takes the form of a 'coma diary' kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in hospital after a suicide attempt. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively.

Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she's now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn't stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they've found on the walls of houses he remodeled. Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America's most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk's most impressive work to date.

Want to know where Chuck Palahniuk's tonsils currently reside? In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers, and local haunts of Portland, Oregon.

Assigned to a story on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, fortyish journalist Carl Streator finds a poetry anthology that contains an African chant that becomes lethal when spoken or thought in someone's direction, is transformed into an involuntary serial killer, and embarks on a cross-country odyssey to destroy all copies of the book before humankind itself is destroyed. Reprint. 175,000 first printing.

A journalist notices a link between a number of victims of cot death. All of the children had the same poem read to them the night before they died. The journalist desperately fights to find all copies of the book containing the accursed poem. This title is by the author of "Fight Club".

Eloonjäänyt- ja Fight Club -romaanien tekijän rankka uutuus. Julma mutta hirtehisen hauska kertomus Victor Mancinista, miehestä, joka jää kirjallisuuden historiaan suurena antisankarina. Mancini joutuu tukemaan taloudellisesti sairasta äitiään, piinaavan omituista, suorastaan kauhistuttavaa olentoa. Mancini on pudonnut lääketieteellisestä korkeakoulusta ja on monella muullakin tavalla enemmän häviäjä kuin yhteiskunnan korkeimmille portaille kipuava amerikkalaisen unelman kiiltokuvapoika. Mancini on keksinyt tavan huijata viattomia sivullisia. Hän näyttelee tukehtuvaa ja selviää muka viime tipassa elvytyksen avulla, jolloin ohikulkija kuvittelee pelastaneensa ihmishengen. Jottei ”pelastaja” käyttäytyisi kohtaloaan vastaan, hänen täytyy pitää huolta Mancinista. Ja tietysti tukeminen on lähinnä taloudellista. Mancinilla tukijoita riittää... Vahvimmat Tukehtuminen-kirjan teemoista ovat amerikkalaisen miehen rappio ja tämän turhautuminen pinnalliseen yhteiskuntaan. Palahniuk käsittelee tätä kaikkea humoristisesti ja lennokkaasti, mutta säälimättä päähenkilöään sen enempää kuin lukijoitansakaan. Palahniuk suoltaa surrealistista satiiria amerikkalaisten kestohymyjen keskellä. Chuck Palahniuk on valmistunut Oregonin yliopistosta. Nykyisin hän asuu Portlandissa. Palahniuk tuli kuuluisaksi palkitulla esikoisteoksellaan Fight Club. Siitä tehty kulttielokuva oli hyvin suosittu myös Suomessa. Likeltä on aiemmin ilmestynyt Palahniukin romaani Eloonjäänyt (2002). ”Palahniukin kieli on nopeaa ja jännittynyttä, siinä on psykopaattista nerokkuutta.” – L. A. Weekly "Vasta viimeisillä sivuilla tämän inhorealistisen sanaripulin, ihmismielen kiirastulissa loimuavan staccato-rytmisen logorrean sisältämät syyt ja seuraukset loksahtavat paikoilleen ja asiat saavat langanlaihan selityksensä. -- Romaani alkaa haastavasti lauseella "Jos aiot lukea tämän, älä viitsi vaivautua". Sana "älä" on turha. Sana "vaivautua" on tosi." - Antti Lindqvist, Parnasso "Anarkistista otetta, mikä on virkistävää kaiken humaaniin kirjallisuuden vastapainoksi." - Tommi Liimatta, Absoluuttinen Nollapiste ""Palahniukin viesti lukijoilleen on selvä: ota askel tuntemattomuuteen, astu ulos systeemistä." – Tuomo Karhu, Turun Sanomat "Tukehtumisessa korostuu erityisesti epäsuora toivo kilpailemattomasta yhteiskunnasta, jossa teoilla on itseisarvo." - Jiri Raikamo, Kouvolan Sanomat

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother's hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who 'saves you' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives.

Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be saved by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor s life, go on to send checks to support him. When he s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park. His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve."

Amerikkalaista huippusatiiria! Katso erinomainen Palahniuk-juttu Image-lehdestä (huhtikuu 2002). Veli Branson sanelee oudon ja jännittävän tarinansa lennolla numero 2039. Hän on yksinään suihkukoneen ohjaamossa. Lentäjät ja matkustajat ovat paenneet. Branson kertoo kaiken tallentavalle mustalle laatikolle miten hän on päätynyt tähän tilanteeseen. Lukija syöksyy Bransonin ja lentokoneen mukana kohti tarinan loppua... tai sen alkua. Tämän kirjan sivunumerot kulkevat takaperin, tarina alkaa sivulta 297, luvusta 47, ja loppuu - tietysti ensimmäisen luvun sivulle yksi! Eloonjäänyt-teoksessa, kuten kaikissa Chuck Palahniukin kirjoissa, tapahtumat etenevät nopeasti, ja juoni on täynnä yllättäviä, henkeäsalpaavan jännittäviä ja outoja käänteitä. Lukija ei todellakaan ensi sivujen perusteella tiedä miten loppuratkaisussa tapahtuu. Koko mestarillinen rakennelma kudotaan valmiiksi vasta viimeisillä sivuilla. Aikaisemmin Chuck Palahniuk on kirjoittanut mm. Fight club -menestysromaanin (Like, 2006), josta tehty elokuva niitti mainetta ympäri maailmaa. Palahniuk asuu Oregonissa, Yhdysvalloissa. Tämä on ensimmäinen suomennettu Palahniukin kirja. "Eloonjäänyt ei kuitenkaan jää yksiviivaisen yhteiskuntakritiikin tasolle. Melankolinen perusvire, oudot lyyriset välähdykset ja eksistentialismiin viittaavat ajatuskulut rikastavat rabelaismaista tapahtumavyöryä. Toivottavasti Palahniuk pysyy Liken julkaisuohjelmassa jatkossakin. Räjähdysaltista kirjailijaa eivät välttämättä muut julkaisisi." - Jani Saxell, Parnasso "Toisin kuin monet kollegansa Palahniuk pursuaa sananpainoa." - Jiri Raikamo, Kouvolan Sanomat "Eloonjäänyt on Fight Clubin tavoin monikerroksinen ja -ulotteinen yhteiskuntasatiiri. Toiminnallinen tarina tulvii oivalluksia, joiden viilloilta eivät säästy sen paremmin amerikkalainen koti, uskonto kuin isänmaakaan. Sävy on kyynisesti virnistelevä, välillä melkeinpä pelottavan älykäs." - Mikko Aromaa, Aktivist "Palahniukin kirjallinen kirurginveitsi pureutuu häikäilemättömästi moniin amerikkalaisen nyky-yhteiskunnan ominaispiirteisiin. Melankolinen perusvire, oudot lyyriset välähdykset ja eksistentialismiin viittaavat ajatuskulut rikastuttavat rabelaismaista tapahtumavyöryä." - Jani Saxell, Parnasso

She's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from being a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better, and that salvation hides in the last place you'll ever want to look.

Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish death cult, has commandeered a Boeing 747, emptied of passengers, in order to tell his story to the plane's black box before it crashes.

Tender Branson -- last surviving member of the so-called "Creedish Death Cult" -- is dictating his incredible life story into the flight recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alone in the plane, which will shortly reach terminal velocity and crash into the vast Australian outback. Before it does, he will unfold the tale of his journey from an obedient Creedish child and humble domestic servant to an ultra-buffed, steroid- and collagen-packed media messiah, author of a best-selling autobiography, Saved from Salvation, and the even better selling Book of Very Common Prayer (The Prayer to Delay Orgasm, The Prayer to Prevent Hair Loss, The Prayer to Silence Car Alarms). He'll even share his insight that "the only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage," and deny responsibility for the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Landfill -- a 20,000-acre repository for the nation's outdated pornography. Among other matters both bizarre and trenchant. Not since Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night and Jerzy Kosinski's Being There has there been as black and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world. Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak, and it marks him as a blazing talent for the new millennium.

Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to. Fight Club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter and dark, anarchic genius.

THE FIRST RULE about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with whitecollar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter, and dark, anarchic genius, and it's only the beginning of his plans for violent revenge on an empty consumer-culture world.